


you and i will always be unfinished business

by AlphaBanana



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27787234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaBanana/pseuds/AlphaBanana
Summary: Seven years hardly vanish overnight.
Relationships: Female Detective/Bobby Marks
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	you and i will always be unfinished business

**seven years and two months ago**

Riona’s eyes scan the mass of bodies, looking for any of the people from her university induction and finding no one.

With no warning or invitation, a large, meaty hand grabs at her backside, clumsy and clearly drunk, and Riona feels her heart seize in her chest—

“Leave her alone - plenty of other girls you can have fun with.” The voice is sweet and silky as caramel, but firm, and Riona feels her heart swell when she sees him, lean and tall, like her own knight in shining armour.

When she feels safe again, she smiles at the stranger and feels her heart flutter when he brushes a curl away from her cheek.

“Bobby Marks - I can only apologise, that’s an awful first experience here. We’re not like that. Here,” and at this he extends an arm to her and smiles when she slips her hand into the crook of his elbow, “let me get you a drink, gorgeous.”

And she cannot help but be drawn in by him, draw closer to him like a moth to a flame, and feels heat spark where their bodies touch. Thinks that maybe, _finally_ , things are going right here, in this new town.

**seven years and one month ago**

In the month that follows, Riona craves any touch, any attention, any _affection_ that she can get from Bobby, and he seems only too eager to give it, his hands never far away from her curves, the crook of her neck, the back of her knee, the inside of her forearm.

One night, he looks at her and she _knows_ she is ready for this for him and—

And whatever she had been led to believe from movies and erotica and the whisperings of more experienced friends at school, it was _so very_ different.

For one thing, it was shorter. The clock on the bedside table tells her that it took him six minutes to finish, and while it was pleasant enough (being close to Bobby always made warmth bloom in her chest, and the way he looked at her like she was something to be cherished was enticing in itself), it was hardly the life-changing experience that her schoolmates insisted it would be. She resists the urge to bring her own fingers down to where she needs them, unwilling to jostle him from where he is sleeping against the swell of her breast.

He looks peaceful like this, when he isn’t pretending for other people, and there’s a part of her that aches for him, for the façade he thinks he needs to put on to impress others and her.

**five years and nine months ago**

“I just don’t like them, gorgeous.” They have been round this argument before, over and over: Bobby doesn’t like Hannah and Jess, and Riona doesn’t know why it upsets him so much that she still sees them.

“But Bobby—” Riona’s voice is quiet, _tired_ (so _fucking_ tired), even as Bobby throws his hands up and turns away from her, voice strained in his throat.

“Why are you fighting me on this? Am I not enough? Don’t you love me anymore?” His voice cracks a little on the word _love_ , and even as she feels a pulse of anxiety course through her at the thought ( _is this love?_ ), she starts at the question, moving forward instinctively.

“What? Of course I—” Riona reaches out to touch his shoulder blade, longing to feel him under her fingers. And when he shrugs off her touch, it burns like acid, and the shock of it (he has _never_ refused her, not even when they had their off-period (and that was, in part, how their “off” period had changed back into an “on” period). The absence of his warmth, the way his eyes and voice had hardened, cut Riona to the bone, and she was barely able to leave the room before she started to sob.

-

It’s two days before Bobby accepts Riona’s touch again, and the lack feels like an ache.

She can’t concentrate in lessons, and her teachers remark on her inattention, even as their brows furrow with worry. She finds herself clutching at her own fingers to simulate the sensation of skin on hers, rubbing soothing circles into the soft skin at the inside of her wrist.

And then, after she texts him promising that she won’t meet up with Hannah and Jess as much, he invites her to dinner, and he is as warm as the first time they met, open and inviting as a venus flytrap, and she cannot help but taste his nectar and become ensnared all over again, knowing that she is addicted to the taste of his approval.

**three years and six months ago**

Riona realises now that Haley had already known what Riona would find if she rounded that corner at precisely that moment. She also thinks that Haley had been trying to tell her that something was wrong for months, but Riona had been too _stubborn_ to see it.

Tongue deep enough in Hannah’s mouth that he must be able to taste what she had for dinner, hand inside her shirt and—

And Riona is gone, already texting Tina to ask if she can crash at hers…

...where she has been for the last month and a half. If Tina had opened the door, it might have ended differently. But now he is here, looking like he always does - contrite and entreating and—

“Come on, gorgeous. We’re good together, you and me, right?”

 _Wrong_.

But his hand is on her cheek, the touch warm and familiar and she is so _tired_ of fighting—

Falling back into Bobby’s embrace is easier than riding a bike, easier than falling asleep, easier than slipping into quicksand.

**two years ago**

Riona catches herself thinking one day that this is the longest they have ever managed to stay together - one year, five month, three days. Instead of being a reassuring, warming feeling, it bubbles in her throat like acid, scalding hot, and she stumbles into their garden ( _their_ , and that little word sends a new wave of panic crashing over her senses) to breathe in clean air.

The first intake of air constricts in her throat, shifts into a sob, until she is crying and she doesn’t know why, breaths heaving in her chest until she feels like she could be sick.

She is wearing her coat before she knows it, with a small bag crammed to the brim with clothes and possessions and memories, bittersweet and strange, as she hails a cab, and this time she lodges with Verda for a little while, offering to look after Cara and little Lacey whenever she can.

This time, she doesn’t let him back in.

**one year and three months ago**

Tina’s tongue is just as honeyed as Riona’s own (as Bobby’s own) and she manages to convince Riona to go out with her, to start to enjoy the town again - _without_ feeling like a guilty, neglectful girlfriend.

It is in her highest heels and tightest skirt that he finds her, propped against a wall for support, and the way his eyes drag down her curves, which had seemed so flattering in the past, now seems almost predatory, and an entirely different type of shiver skitters down her spine, raising her shoulders almost to her ears.

“Looking good, gorgeous. Miss me?” His voice, which once seemed so smooth and warm to her, is saccharine sweet, cloying enough to choke in, and even now Riona feels a tug at her heart strings.

 _Sometimes_. “No.” But there is enough of a waver in her voice that he leans in closer, and her traitorous senses can feel his presence slick against every pore.

“Are you sure? Because from where I’m standing,” from his vantage point above her, he can see almost directly down her cleavage, and she resists the urge to cover herself, “I think you want this.”

“This?” Riona plays dumb—and she still isn’t sure how she feels about the fact that he thinks so lowly of her and of other women that it is _very_ easy to play dumb with him—and watches as his eyes darken in frustration.

“You can’t just turn your back on us. I’m the best you’ll ever have, gorgeous.” And even as she feels herself start to sink, languishes in the idea that Bobby might well actually be the best she would have (and how sad that thought is - that she is only worth the affections a borderline narcissist can give her), she remains firm.

“No, Bobby.”

“No?” Bobby rolls the word on his tongue, as if he isn’t quite familiar with it, as if he’s not sure how it’s pronounced, and now he is _staring_ at her, eyes dark and unyielding.

“No.” With that, she pushes past him, and even as he gapes after her she realises that that small touch was still enough to set her off-kilter, and she has to stop herself from wobbling as she leaves him.

**four months ago**

Bobby is in the hallway outside her flat, lounging there as if he has any _right_ to be there, and Riona freezes when she sees him.

“What do _you_ want?”

He gets under her skin, because of _course_ he does. Seven years of an almost addictive connection does not disappear overnight. She has just barely been able to wean herself off of him.

“Just to talk, gorgeous.” His eyes study her as she fumbles with her keys, and she stands in the doorway, arms folded (and she shrinks a little at the way his eyes fall on her breasts, highlighted by the motion, and she lowers her arms instead).

“So talk.” She blocks his entrance, and he scowls at that, at the fact that this isn’t going the way he had planned.

“Caused quite a stir at the carnival with your new... _friend_ .” Of _course_ that was the only thing this small, provincial town could bear to think about, even as an illness was spreading through the population.

“I’m _not_ having this conversation with you.” Riona starts to shut the door on Bobby, even as he tries to engage her in conversation.

“That’s not— _hey_.” He sticks his foot in the gap between the door and the frame, and she has to resist the urge to slam it on his foot, bruise as much as she can (after all, he has bruised so much of her). “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“So, what.”

“Are you going to let me in, gorgeous? Don’t exactly want to be standing outside your door all evening. The neighbours might talk.”

Riona lets him in, and this is already a mistake, there is nowhere to run in the apartment now that he blocks the door and _oh_ , this is letting the devil in all over again, he is _too close_ —   
“We’re not nothing. I still—” And this is genuine, she knows that because when he lies, Bobby is smooth but when he tells the truth, even if he tries to hide it, his voice is rough as sandpaper.

“I still _care_ , Ri.” And the endearment, the words outweigh the feeling of déjà-vu, that _we have been here before_ , and when he runs his fingers along her jawline she is _lost_. Quicksand has never seemed so inviting.

**yesterday**

He is at her door again, begging entrance - only this time, it isn’t her that answers the door.

“She’s busy.” Mason, dressed in pyjamas and one of her many corny aprons, scowls from the doorway, even as Bobby tries to crane his neck to look into the apartment and see her.

“She’ll see me. She always does.” And even from this distance, she sees Mason’s frame tighten—he knows about Bobby, knows the past she shares with him and the kiss they shared only scant months before, and while he is hardly _happy_ about it, he _understands_ , and _that_ means more than she can say.

Riona moves to stand next to Mason, leaning into Mason’s arm looped around her waist as she talks as calmly as she can manage to Bobby.

“What do you _want_ , Bobby?” Riona’s just _tired_ at this point, although Mason’s warmth gives her some much needed support.

“Y—” He seems to stop himself just in time, whether out of _pride_ (he has _never_ liked admitting that he needs her) or out of _fear_ at Mason’s burgeoning snarl.

“You—” Whatever words Bobby means to say, they seem to stick in his throat like glass, and Riona watches him swallow uncomfortably.

“Yes?” She doesn’t mean to be rude, but she has a batch of brownies, sinfully sweet and rich with cocoa powder, in the oven and it’s _crucial_ that—but one look at Mason and he already knows, planting a kiss on Riona's forehead before throwing a warning look at Bobby as he moves to check on them.

“You’re happy, aren’t you?”

The question stuns - not because she hasn’t expected it, but because there is a moment of clarity where she realises that she _is_ happy, maybe for the first time ever.

“I—yeah, I am.”

“Were you ever that happy with me?” Bobby’s eyes, normally so assured and confident, are pleading now, and she cannot bring herself to tell him the truth - _no_.

“At—at the beginning, maybe.”

“Right. Well.” Bobby seems reassured, at least a little, but swallows hard all the same, rubbing the back of his neck as he looks at his feet.

“Goodbye, Bobby.” And when Riona leans up to kiss Bobby goodbye for the very last time, chastely on the cheek, she feels a trill run through her at the realisation that his touch no longer affects her as it did, that she is no longer addicted to the sensation of his skin under her lips, under her fingers. Smiles once more, before she bids him good morning and returns to her own oasis.


End file.
